Bulletin de liaison et d'information - Institut kurde de Paris

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REVUE DE PRESSE-PRESS REVlEW-BERHEVOKA ÇAPÊ-RMSTA STAMPA-DENTRO DE LA PRENSA-BASIN ÖZETi
6 Turkish Probe June 16,1995
Different Tunes Aired inTurkey
While KDP Hunts Security Deal
Rafit Gürdilek
Oll conducted by the Turkish Daily News
recently showed that Turks, seeing the
~ uthority vacuum in northern Iraq as a chief
source of insecurity for the country, want Baghdad's
authority to be reinstated in the Kurdish-controlled
north. If a former senior Kurdish official is to be
believed, the Iraqi Kurds, frustrated with their leaders'
bloody feuds, disillusioned with their experiment
with democracy and crushed by poverty, want
the same.
Mainstream Iraqi Kurdish parties, meanwhile,
keep waiting for a response from Ankara to their
terms for a border security arrangement, which was
proposed after Turkeys's March 20 incursion into
Iraq against the Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK)
separatists. But despite its early enthusiasm,
Turkey seems to have a change of heart.
An Iraqi parliamentary delegation was given a
red-carpet treatment last week and was pointedly
allowed to file an official request against a renewed
mandate for the Western air force based in Incir1ik,
protecting the safe haven for the Iraqi Kurds under
Operation Provide Comfort. The mandate of the
torce expires at the end of the month and there is a
growing opposition in the Par1iamentto extend the
stay of the alien warplanes although the military has
sought an extended mandate. The TON survey,
based on interviews with 2,000 people in the main
cities and published on Monday, June 12, showed
that 36.03 percent of the people want northem Iraq
to be given back to Iraqi control in response to a
question over what Turkey should do in the area to
maintain its security.
Those who wanted northern Iraq to be controlled
by Turkey were also numerous, making up 34.68
percent of the sample. The poll results were more
pronounced in showing that the Westem planes had
definitely overstayed their welcome. No less than
67.17 percent of the sampled people said -no. when
asked if the Provide Comfort force should remain in
the area. A similarly high percentage of the Turks
did not have any security worries regarding Iraq.
Asked if they considered Saddam Hussein as a
threat to Turkey, 66.22 percent of the sample
replied in the negative.
Strangely, the feeling does not seem to be very
different among the Iraqi Kurds, according to
Hussein Sinjari, a former aide of Jalal Talabani, the
leader of the Patriötic Union of Kurdistan and once
a prominent figure in the Kurds' regional government,
although the PUK has disputed his contentions
that he was a founder of the party and that
he held ministerial rank in the govemment.
In an exclusive interview with the TON, published
on Tuesday, June 13, Sinjari said the Iraqi Kurds
longed for a settlement with Baghdad and that if a
referendum were held right now, an overwhelming
majority would support it. -I challenge anyone who
is saying otherwise to come to Iraqi Kurdistan and
conduct a poll, an epinion poll in Oohuk, Erbil and
Sulaymaniyah," Sinjari told the TON.
A main reason for the Kurds' longing for -a better
life instead of slogans" was their diminished respect
and loyalty to their traditional leaders - Talabani
and his moderate rival, Massoud Barzani who
heads the Kurdistan Democratic Party (KOP)-
because of their unending power struggle and selfishness.
Sinjari also said the democratic institutions
such as the local parliament and the regional government
were discredited in the eyes of the people
because of impotence and widespread corruption
afflicting officialdom.
According to Sinjari, a Western-trained international
relations expert and the London representative
of the regional government, the Iraqi Kurdish
leaders proved themselves to be dividers instead of
uniting the people and squandered the meager
income of the entity to arm their private militias. He
said he, and most Iraqi Kurds, first of all considered
themselves citizens of Iraq and held the interests of
the Iraqi state over those of the West.
But he sought international guarantees, preferably
from the West, for the accord he wanted with
Baghdad. He said it was essential for a third party
to take part in the talks with the Iraqi government for
a negotiated settlement which, he said, should have
the additional guarantee of being recorded by the
United Nations. .
He said Britain, which played a major role in
Iraq's independence in the past, had close historic
and cultural relations and on top of that was a
-mother" for the Kurdish safe haven in the north,
was ideally suited for such a role. If Britain was not
accepted, France, Russia, the Iraqi National
Congress (INC) ~n umbrella organization for the
Jraqi and Kurdish opposition groups- or the MCC,
the Zakho-based Military Coordination Center
grouping a score of Western military personnel
monitoring the Gulf War cease-fire terms, could be
other candidates for the role, Sinjari said. As for
Turkey, he said it could playa role as monitor within
the MCC, and could advise the Iraqi officials on a
democratic solution for the Kurdish issue.
Beyond the presence of an agreed third party in
the negotiations, the Kurdish official said a set of
confidence-building measures had to be implemented
to help remove the deep-rooted distrust between
Baghdad and the Kurds. Topping the list for such
measures should be a commitment by Baghdad not
to send its troops back into the north before the
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